Abstract:

In 21st century schools there are no boundaries. Technology helps students learn anytime and anywhere. Technological approaches like Skype connections bring the world into the 21st century classroom through social networking and video conferencing. It is possible to inspire the next generation of global citizens through transformative learning over Skype. Through video conferencing, it is possible to engage classrooms and watch students of one class interact with students of other class. Classroom to classroom and school to school interactions bring a new challenge to 21st century students, encouraging them to actively participate in live discussions.
This study aims to show the impact of Skype as a tool for effective and significant learning and teaching in real classrooms, within a sample of 32 students from middle to secondary school level, that went through skype sessions, from september 2019 to december 2019, at Natural Sciences and Biology subjects. As researching methods it was implemented a mixed-aproach, both quantitative and qualitative, with (i) pre and pos questionnaires, built upon a lickert scale; (ii) semistructured interviews, pre and pos skype sessions, to randomed selected students and teachers and (iii) an observation scale instrument within each skype session. The first results show that teachers: (i) battle to hold students’ short attention spans; (ii) are available for integratting Skype in the classroom; (iii) consider that skype experience brings the curriculum to life in ways never before possible, causing intrigue and curiosity to students and (iv) state that Skype created a whole new world of learning for their students, by bringing them meaningful, real-world experiences. On the other side, students: (i) prefer the Virtual Field Trips, visiting laboratorys, museums, national parks, zoos; (ii) refer that it is important the opportunity to invite scientists from any point of the globe, from Cambridge to Harvard, sharing their expertise and project and (iii) enjoy playing the Mystery Skype challenges, which allows two classes to guess each other’s locations via questioning. Finnaly, teachers however say that Skype can have some limitations, as being dependent of a good Internet connectivity, or difficulties combining different Time and World Time Zones.

Keywords:

Technology, Skype, Classroom, Learning, Teaching, 21 st century.